The Luck of the Turtle
by candelight
Summary: Late St. P Turtle Tot Oneshot! There are certain days Master Splinter dreads more than in others in the year. And that darn St. Patrick's Day is one of them. Rated U for Unmerciless pinching.


The Luck of the Turtle

カメは幸運な小さい人物です

Late St. P Turtle Tot Oneshot! There are certain days Master Splinter dreads more than in others in the year. And that darn St. Patrick's Day is one of them. Rated U for Unmerciless pinching.

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><p>Hello, everyone! Gosh, I missed you….hope you've all been doing well. ^^ School is keeping everyone busy (Two more months, peoples), and there's a lot of chaos bumbling about our household (More so then usual), so I put a small brake on my writing for a bit.<p>

But people are getting ready for St. Patrick's Day now, and I got to thinking about the turtles…and their poor master.

Please, take care, everyone.

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><p>The surface dwellers certainly enjoyed their revelry every few weeks. In his early years in America, it almost astonished Splinter just how many festivals Americans insisted on having in just one year. In Japan, the holiest holidays of the year were New Year's Eve and Day, when everyone cleaned their homes and held parties in hopes of bringing in good fortune for the coming year.<p>

In America, people stayed up until the stroke of midnight to welcome in the new year….for some unholy reason. He suspected that the pioneers who had created the silly notion must have had some deep, personal vendetta against parents.

His young sons had begged and pleaded to be allowed to stay up, and, after a week of unceasing cajole, Splinter had finally broken down and agreed.

Of course, they all began dropping like flies shortly after their bedtime (Leo had been the last to pass out on the _tatami_ mat at 10:04), and Splinter had been left with some relative peace for awhile…..

….at least, until Times Square directly above them happened to explode with fireworks and cheers, which could be heard miles and miles under stone and concrete in the underground. After that, no one had slept, and Splinter was VERY hard-pressed to stir four extremely reluctant turtles for their katas in the morning.

Valentine's Day in February was fine enough-his son Donatello had read about the holiday in a small picture book, and the date was confirmed to be an actual holiday on a very old, bedraggled calendar three or four years out of date. His sons enjoyed making Valentines and cutting out crooked paper hearts and snowflakes, which gave the otherwise dull graying bricks in the Lair a sense of cheer, especially in the miserable winter months.

Easter, too, was fine. It was a lovely time of the year that symbolized rebirth and the joy of Springtime. Of course, there was little 'Springtime' to be found in the City, let alone in the sewer canals, but it slowly crept in to their lives again, just the same.

Splinter was reluctant at the idea of coloring and hiding real food-it seemed such a waste-so his sons had colored small stones and hid them instead. The mood was certainly festival enough-and Splinter thought it wouldn't cause much harm to let his sons color and hide real eggs.

Next year, that had proved to be a mistake. Splinter had dug out an old, putrid smelling egg that had been hiding in the cupboard….around June, two and a half months later.

The Fourth of July was just as well, though the continuous loud _zips_! And **bangs**! From above certainly made the poor rat's ears ache for awhile-and it hardly helped that his sons were extremely keyed up by the energy that surface dwellers enjoyed. Thankfully, New York had their City Firework Display televised, which was only irritating when Splinter's newest pair of makeshift ear plugs began to wear out, or when he'd wanted to watch an episode of _The Gilmore Girls._

Halloween was definitely a stranger idea that people had come up-and the exact idea of the holiday that lay beyond small children dressing up and demanding candy from strangers eluded him-but it was the one day of the year where his family could venture onto the surface without detection. It made him extremely anxious the first few times he had lead four hyperactive turtles aboveground-but thankfully, each holiday passed without incident, pardoning when Michelangelo would insist on eating all of his candy, and promptly make himself sick to his stomach.

Thanksgiving was possibly one of Master Splinter's favorite holidays-one America had gotten right. Just a simple day of good food with good family…and the Football Raphael insisted be on the telly all day long. That was the one flaw Splinter could find within Thanksgiving. It was a shame that people didn't insist on having Soap marathons instead of all-day showings of overpaid athletes beating themselves into the ground for a bit of pigskin.

Christmas was when the Lair was at its most festive and lively. While aboveground, the surface dwellers kept the mood of Thanksgiving alive by tackling one another at large retailers and shops, the Hamato household enjoyed a relatively 'quiet 'Christmas (As quiet as they could, really) as they waited from a visit from 'Santa.' Evidently, St. Nick happened to be quite an effective ninja, as neither Leo, Don, Mikey, or Raph had been successful in catching the intruder.

But there was always next year.

There was, however, one holiday, that bothered the ninja master incessantly.

For you see….

The folks up in New York liked St. Patrick's Day a lot.

But Splinter, who lived with four ninja-in-training turtles….did not.

At least the Grinch had been reasonably well protected every March 17th, but that shielding only extended to his sons, who'd had the good fortune to be born varying shades of emerald. It was the one day of the year that his sons DIDN'T pinch each other continuously, for tradition stipulated that if you pinched someone who was indeed wearing green, the victim was allowed to pinch you back twice as hard.

Unfortunately, this also meant he was prime target.

Still, Splinter wondered what harm would come from dyeing himself green for the day, just to see the disappointed looks on his family's faces when he too, became untouchable.

End

Nooooo! Splinter, don't do it! Sorry...just a silly bit of Fanfiction Fun. :) May all of you remember this: Use padding on St. Patrick's Day, and come to the Green side...we have cookies!


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